The Concept of Media Reform

In today global communication ecosystem, is media diversity still an issue for media reform movements to be engaging with?
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The concept of media reform became more prominent with the expansion of the role of civil society in promoting freedom of expression, press freedom, and media rights. The media reform movements reshaped media landscaping and promoted media diversity and governance. Yet, corporate media tends to focus on elite-captured policies and issues, while also perpetuating the dominant discourses on different issues. One of the dominant views in the media industry is that regulating the media violates the freedom of expression and media democracy activists are among the strongest opponents to such regulations (Brevini and Schlosberg, 2016). As such, there is consensus in western democracies, that the media should be allowed to operate freely and there should be no regulations restricting free speech. There is still a need for diverse voices in the media industry and media reform movements still need to champion media diversity.
Media reform is closely linked with democratic reform as there is an emphasis on strong institutions, access to unbiased diverse viewpoints, press freedom, and media diversity. To achieve this, the civil society actors and activities seek equitable media access where there are also more democratic structures and content (Aslama & Nieminen, 2017). The media reform movements often engage in negotiation and resistance to influence change and ensure the media covers diverse issues (Brevini and Schlosberg, 2016). The movements are informed by advocacy for consumer rights reflected in reform strategies and communicative justice that linked to civil rights equal representation and accountability (Freedman, 2016). For the media reform activists, there ought to be justice and free speech where there are no vested interests in the media industry, which would allow and encourage media diversity.
There are more commercial broadcasters than public broadcasters in democratic western societies, while public broadcasters tend to be highly influential in non-western societies. There is transparency on content and ownership among public broadcasters in the west and these broadcasters tend to be more open to media diversity. The media reform movement emphasizes democratizing the media landscape (Durazo Herrmann, 2017). The lack of transparency of media ownership and high ownership concentration in the media industry are concerning as they make it more difficult to promote media diversity (Freedman, 2016). Ownership concentration also reflects the owners’ economic interests and attempts to promote media diversity may be wrongly viewed as a government’s interference in a free press (Schlosberg, 2016). Yet, freedom of the press should be accompanied by accountability with journalists following journalism professional ethics and code of conduct.
Freedom of the press is essential for independent news production, but media self-regulation has not necessarily made it easier to promote media diversity (Podger, 2019) and (The media reform movement emphasizes democratizing the media landscape (Bayer et al., 2016). In a globalized world, news coverage...